Throughout my career, I’ve had the opportunity to help businesses, nonprofits, associations and public figures spread their message and reach their goals online. I’m honored to bring that skill set here to Martin Waymire and fulfill our mission to help clients make Michigan a better place.
Here are just a few of the primary ways to use online advertising to reach your audiences and help achieve your goals:
Demographic Targeting
One of the most basic ways to target on Facebook is by general demographic information. You can advertise to your audience based on location, age, gender and languages. This tool is a helpful first step to limit your audience, particularly if you want to speak to a certain age group or gender, and especially if you want only people in a certain city or community to view your ads.
Interest Targeting
Interest-based targeting lets you dive a bit deeper into who your audience is and how it behaves online. Some examples include audience members’ job role, education level, income, whether they are a parent (and what age their children are), political leanings, charitable giving tendencies, and more. There are many interest options available for targeting online that go well beyond what print, television or radio ads can offer, which ensures your budget is spent effectively and efficiently to reach the audiences of your choice.
Custom Audiences
Do you have an email list, member database or another list with people you are trying to reach? Facebook has made it even easier to target on an individual level. The more information you try to match, the better, but Facebook allows you to upload first and last names, phone numbers, physical addresses, dates of birth and more. We can generally match about 65 percent of lists we upload directly to Facebook, but we know the ads will be delivered directly to our target audience.
Retargeting
Have you ever looked at a pair of shoes or sporting equipment online, only to have it follow you wherever you go? That’s retargeting at work. When your audience leaves your website without taking a desired action or if you want to continue to remind them of your message, retargeting is a great tool to deploy. People who already have visited your website and receive retargeting ads are three to 10 times more likely to visit your website again, compared to those who never have visited. It is important to note, however, that this tactic must be used moderately and strategically so that your advertisements don’t overwhelm your audience.
Practicing What We Preach
One of the first projects I was was given here at Martin Waymire involves helping the Lansing Board of Water & Light (BWL) communicate online about its Lansing Energy Tomorrow campaign. Over the years, I’ve come to have tremendous respect for the BWL and what it does for the #LoveLansing community. I was thrilled to help it get the message out to its customers – including many of my friends and neighbors – regarding its plan to reach a 40 percent renewable energy standard by 2030.
The BWL wants its customers to know that it created a Citizens Advisory Board to discuss and plan for the Greater Lansing community’s energy future. The board found that customers overwhelmingly want energy that is clean, affordable and reliable. We are using a couple of the targeting strategies above to deliver messages to BWL customers who will be benefiting from BWL’s new energy plan. Check out one of the ads here:
The world of Facebook – particularly advertising – is constantly evolving. While these changes make the advertising experience more personalized and cost-efficient, they can also be a bit confusing and hard to keep track of. That’s where we can help. Let us know if you have any questions and be sure to reach out if we can help you or your organizations spread your message and reach your goals online.
